No jets have flown over Aleppo for past 9 days

Moscow says Russian and Syrian aircraft have not carried out any sorties over Aleppo for nine days in line with their “humanitarian pause.”

The Russian Defense Ministry responded on Thursday a day after a monitoring group sympathetic to militants claimed that airstrikes had killed at least 26 people in a village in Idlib.

Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin challenged the UN and the West to provide evidence of continuing airstrikes in Aleppo.

Churkin said no aircraft has approached the city at a distance of less than 10 km since a unilateral moratorium was announced by Russia and Syria on October 18 “in response to the UN call, and as a goodwill gesture.”

“If you have any information that there were any missile and bomb strikes, please provide this information,” Churkin said, adding he expected an “objective analysis” of the current situation.

Churkin also criticized the UN for failing “to thrash out in a proper way the operation on evacuation of the sick and injured people.”

“The UN staff members have failed to exert required pressure on patrons of the illegal armed units so that the militants could cooperate with humanitarian workers.”

The Russian ambassador also hit out at UN aid envoy Stephen O’Brien for bias and arrogance after claiming that Aleppo had become a “kill zone” under Russian and Syrian bombs.

The US, Britain and France rushed to his defense in one of the stormiest council sessions in weeks after Churkin accused O’Brien of failing to recognize that Russia and Syria had declared a humanitarian pause.

Churkin criticized the UN official for failing to present the facts objectively while foreign-backed rebels and al-Qaeda-linked terrorists are hampering a UN plan to evacuate the wounded from Aleppo.

“Please leave this kind of report to a novel that you might write one day,” the Russian ambassador told the UN official.

“Aircraft of the Russian aerospace forces and the Syrian air force have not been carrying out any flight closer than the 10-kilometer zone around the city of Aleppo for nine days,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Fighters from the so-called Free Syrian Army fire an anti-aircraft machine gun mounted near the northern Syrian village of Beraan north of Aleppo, Oct. 24, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Warships won’t join Aleppo campaign

The Foreign Ministry also dismissed as absurd suggestions from NATO that a new Russian battle group heading to the Mediterranean would join the campaign against terrorists in Aleppo.

The rebuttal came after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned on Tuesday that the ships could be used to launch more airstrikes.